Sheep Dogs Protect Endangered Island Penguins

On Australia’s Middle Island, after the population of Little Penguins dropped to fewer than 10 birds, the city council was desperate for a solution.

That’s when David Williams, an environmental science student working part-time at a free-range egg farm, suggested placing Maremma sheepdogs — the same dogs his employer used to guard the chickens — as protection for the birds against their greatest predator, the red fox.

And it worked.

Seven years later, the penguin numbers are back in the hundreds, and two sheepdogs continue to keep watch over their “flock.”